Grok 4.6 and 4.7: What Elon Musk Actually Announced (and What He Didn't)

On July 24, 2026, Elon Musk posted on X a brief but consequential update: "Grok 4.6 in 2 weeks and Grok 4.7 in 4 weeks" . The announcement set off a wave of speculation about SpaceXAI's next moves, particularly around the size and capability of these models. This article separates what is confirmed from what remains unconfirmed, drawing on multiple credible sources including Musk's own posts, CNBC, and industry reporting.

Release Timeline

Based on Musk's July 24 post, the target release dates are:

• Grok 4.6: approximately August 7, 2026 .
• Grok 4.7: approximately August 21, 2026 .

Both models are being released under SpaceXAI, the public company formed after xAI was folded into SpaceX .

Grok 4.6: What Is Confirmed

Parameter Count

Musk explicitly confirmed the 2 trillion parameter model, stating it is the "2T model" that is "better than our 1.5T in every way" . It is a direct successor to Grok 4.5, which is based on the 1.5T V9 foundation model .

Training Data: SpaceX Engineering

On July 21–22, 2026, Musk announced that SpaceX's proprietary "world-class engineering data" would be used for supplemental training of the "2T run" . This data includes internal archives from building orbital launch vehicles, Starlink hardware, and manufacturing processes. Critically, data restricted by the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) — such as rocket engine propulsion details and guidance systems — is excluded. However, materials science, manufacturing processes, and Starlink hardware design data are included .

This integration gives Grok 4.6 access to specialized physical-reasoning data that standard web scraping cannot replicate . Multiple analysts have noted this could give Grok a significant edge in engineering, robotics, and scientific problem-solving .

The Competitive Context: Moonshot AI's Kimi K3

Grok 4.6 is being released into an increasingly competitive landscape. Just over a week before Musk's announcement, Beijing-based Moonshot AI released Kimi K3 on July 16, 2026 .

Kimi K3 Key Specs

• 2.8 trillion total parameters using a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture with 896 experts (approximately 16 active per token) .
• 1-million-token context window and native vision capabilities .
• Open-weight release, with full model weights promised by July 27, 2026 . Moonshot describes it as the first open "3T-class" AI system .

Benchmark Performance

Moonshot AI claims Kimi K3 beat Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT 5.5 on coding and general agentic benchmarks . CNBC reported this directly, stating Moonshot's claims were that the model "beat Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT 5.5 — models that sit just behind Anthropic and OpenAI's leading-edge systems" . Multiple other sources confirm these benchmark claims .

Grok 4.6 is explicitly positioned to compete against Kimi K3 .

Grok 4.7: What Is Confirmed vs. What Is Speculation

Confirmed

• Name and release window: Musk's July 24 post .
• SpaceXAI's broader accelerated roadmap .

Not Confirmed

• Parameter count: Musk did not disclose a parameter count or training details for Grok 4.7 .

What the Broader Pipeline Shows

As of May–June 2026, xAI's Colossus 2 supercluster was running seven concurrent training jobs, including one 6-trillion-parameter model and one 10-trillion-parameter model . These were described as variants of "Grok 5," not Grok 4.7 . Grok 5 has been reported as targeting 6 trillion parameters using an MoE architecture, originally slated for Q1–Q2 2026 but repeatedly delayed .

There is no independent source that explicitly labels any 6-trillion-parameter training run as tied to Grok 4.7. The 6T+ training runs on Colossus 2 appear to be Grok 5 or foundation-model work .

Key Caveats at a Glance

Claim	Status	Source(s)
Grok 4.6 release in ~2 weeks	Confirmed
Grok 4.6 at 2T parameters	Confirmed
Grok 4.6 trained on SpaceX engineering data	Confirmed
Grok 4.7 release in ~4 weeks	Confirmed
Grok 4.7 parameter count	Not disclosed
6T-parameter variants training for Grok 4.7	Unsupported — documented as Grok 5
Kimi K3 beating Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT 5.5	Confirmed via Moonshot AI's claims and CNBC

The bottom line is clear: Grok 4.6 (2T parameters, trained with SpaceX engineering data) is confirmed for an early August release, and Grok 4.7 is confirmed only by name and a late August release window. The 6-trillion-parameter Colossus 2 training runs are real, but the evidence ties them to Grok 5, not Grok 4.7. Musk has not disclosed what size 4.7 will be.